Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

145 O my God and King, I will extol You, and will bless Your Name forever and ever.

² I will bless You daily and praise Your Name forever and ever.

³ Great is the LORD, and most worthy to be praised. His greatness is incomprehensible.

⁴ Generation to generation shall praise Your works and declare Your power.

⁵ I will meditate on the beauty of Your glorious majesty and Your wonderful works.

⁶ And they shall speak of the power of Your awesome acts, and I will declare Your greatness.

⁷ They shall break out into the mention of Your great goodness and shall sing aloud of Your righteousness.

⁸ The LORD is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger, and of great mercy.

³ The shields of His mighty men are made red. The valiant men are in scarlet. The chariots are afire, flaming on the day of His preparation. And the fir trees shall tremble.

⁴ The chariots shall rage in the streets. They shall run to and fro on the highways. They shall seem like lamps. They shall shoot like lightning.

⁵ He shall remember His strong men. They shall stumble as they go. They shall hurry to its walls. And the defense shall be prepared.

⁶ The gates of the rivers shall be opened. And the palace shall melt.

⁷ And Huzzab shall be led away captive. And her maids shall lead, as with the voice of doves, striking upon their breasts.

⁸ Though Nineveh was of old like a pool of water, now they shall flee away. “Stand! Stand!” shall they cry. But no one shall look back.

⁹ Plunder the silver! Plunder the gold! For there is no end to the treasure and glory of all the pleasant vessels!

¹⁰ She is empty and void and laid waste. And the heart melts. And the knees strike together. And sorrow is in all loins. And the faces of them all gather heat.

¹¹ Where is the dwelling of the lions and the pasture of the lion’s whelps, where the lion and the lioness awakened, and the lion’s whelp, and no one made them afraid?

¹² The lion tore enough in pieces for his whelps, and worried for his lioness, and filled his holes with prey, and his dens with spoil.

¹³ “Behold, I come to you,” says the LORD of Hosts, “and I will burn her chariots in the smoke. And the sword shall devour your young lions. And I will cut off your spoil from the Earth. And the voice of your messengers shall no longer be heard.”

⁵ Test yourselves, whether you are in the faith. Examine yourselves. Do you not know yourselves how that Jesus Christ is in you, unless you are disqualified?

⁶ But I trust that you shall know that we are not disqualified.

⁷ Now I pray to God that you do no evil; not that we should seem approved, but that you should do that which is honest, though we may be disqualified.

⁸ For we cannot do anything against the truth, but for the truth.

⁹ For we are glad when we are weak, and you are strong. For this also we pray: even your perfecting.

¹⁰ Therefore, I write these things while being absent (so that when I am present, I should not use sharpness) according to the power which the Lord has given me to edification, and not to destruction.